A State Of Isolation
by ArchangelCorps
Summary: Before Will can move forward, the dissonance between what he feels and what he knows of right and wrong have to be reconciled.


Will awoke, gasping, to the coppery taste of blood hanging in his mouth. His eyes fluttered open, glanced across the unfamiliar room. Plain, white walls, cracking with age, stained where rusted metal sat against them. Light filtered through ripped, off-white curtains, but he couldn't tell if it was early morning or late afternoon.

Tentatively, he pushed up onto his elbows. Pain crashed over his body, starting at the stomach and spreading outwards. The memory of what caused it came flooding back in time with each wave of pain. He brought a hand to rub his face, shoving the thoughts to the back of his mind. There were more important things to factor in without thinking of that. Like the state of the hospital. The medical equipment in the room—none of which was hooked to him—was either turned off or broken.

He eased himself upright, hanging his legs over the edge of the bed. The furnace was off, according to the chill in the air that prickled his skin, barely covered by a thin medical gown. Dust motes swirled in the stale air, illuminated by the faint rays of light shining in. No one had set foot in the building in years. The dim light flickering above him was the only indication the building had power at all.

A shiver ran through him as he scanned the rest of the room, seeking anything that could tell him why he was there. He looked for papers, clipboards, anything, and then his eyes fell on the whiteboard on the wall opposite the foot of his bed. Looping, scrawling letters covered it, but he couldn't make out anything intelligible. He turned his attention towards the open door, through which he could see another light flickering on and off erratically. The quiet murmur of staff, patients, and loved ones associated with a hospital was absent. The only sound he could hear was the soft buzz of the lights coming and going.

Pain tore through him in greater frequency than before, as he eased himself onto numb legs, but still he forced himself to take one shaky step after the other. By the time he crossed the threshold into the hallway, the numbness ebbed away.

It was dark to his left and right, and intermittently where he stood as the light above flickered out briefly. The hall showed fewer signs of life than his room had. Papers, faded and yellowed with age, littered the area. Down the hall to his right, an old, blackened wheelchair lay overturned, long forgotten by its owners.

Cracks mapped the walls and the floors of the hospital, starting around his door and spreading out in every direction. At his feet, weeds grew through the crevices in the linoleum. Knots formed in his stomach, waves of cold and then warm washing over him as he forced himself to take yet more steps out of the room.

"Hello?" Will called, voice hoarse, unfamiliar. He listened. No reply came, and he took a few steps further into the hallway, tentative until he felt like he could walk without worrying about his knees buckling.

As he got closer, he could see that one end of the hallway had collapsed, which meant the stairwell he found just to his side was the only route left. He made his way down, after finding the upper stairs had collapsed as well. He skipped a row covered in fungi, coming to a door with a large four painted in chipping, once-black paint. He tried the rusted handle. It squealed under the effort, and the door remained closed. Something heavy rested against the other side, likely another collapsed ceiling.

Sighing, he continued downwards until he reached ground level. Like the fifth floor, it was all dark hallways and flickering bulbs, precariously close to plunging him into total darkness.

The slap of his feet against the linoleum was the only sound other than the soft buzz of electricity as he continued into the hospital. The ground underfoot was cold, covered in grime. The paint on the walls was a dingy yellow that Will could imagine was once a bright, bumble bee yellow—like a children's hospital—and the smell of dirt hung in the air. It brought to mind images of a rudimentary tunnel, or a shallow grave.

He came to an abrupt stop as he rounded a corner, greeted with a female form clad in red scrubs and black heels. The air around him felt colder, as the color drained from the world; except or the red. Every ounce of his being told him to turn around, to run back upstairs. Find someone else. He steeled himself, took a deep breath, then another. He swallowed.

"Excuse me?" he asked.

She jerked, straightening with such force he could hear the crack from his end of the hall. It seemed as if his voice had been a whip against her back. He cast his gaze around, briefly, looking for anything to—what? Arm himself? An empty clipboard lay here, a file cabinet there. His eyes snapped back to the nurse as she swiveled around, her upper half turning as if it wasn't quite attached, and then she took a few jerky steps to face him fully. Static crackled somewhere in the darkness to his left.

His eyes remained fixed on her, or rather, her face; bandages wrapped about her head, two dark pools seeping through where her eyes should have been. Blood ran like tears down too pale cheeks. Breath held, he took a step back. The stairs weren't far, he could go back up, find a weapon, maybe he had missed someone that could help—

A cry tore from his lips as his ankle twisted on a root that had grown through. Reflexively, his hands shot out, trying to catch himself, and took hold of the metal filing cabinet. It clattered to the ground with him. A shrill sound, something teetering between a gasp and a scream, escaped the nurse as she lurched forward, and then lunged, moving too fast for a broken backed creature in heels.

Scrambling to his feet, Will barely ducked under the hooked blade she swung. It opened a gash along his back, and he bit back another cry, twisting around to shove her back. He faced her now that he was standing, and she rose back up, hunched, one ankle bent at a right angle. Another gasp, this one quiet, and she dove at him. He caught her wrists.

Up close, her lips were tinged blue, oxygen deprived and long dead, yet still trying to form words. The only sounds that came were weak, choked gasps of air punctuated by a scream like nails on a chalkboard. Her strength was almost overwhelming, and it took what little he had left to wrench the curved blade away from her hands.

She took a sharp breath as he lodged it into her stomach. Her hands drew up to his face, clutching at his jaw as convulsions wracked her body. Cold fingers found their way up, tangling into his hair, before she sank to the ground and her body finally went still.

Will stepped back, observing his handiwork, shocked and numb from the adrenaline. It was exhilarating and abhorring the degree of pleasure he took in the ease with which the blade had sank in, still gripped so tightly in his hands that his blood coated knuckles were turning white.

Fabric rustled behind him, and a strong hand wrapped itself around his neck. As his windpipe was closed off, his gasps mimicked the nurse's. He struggled, losing his grip on the blade in his panic, grabbing at the hand that held him close to a much larger form. Another arm came around to hold him in place, pinning the other arm down, and the embrace was almost tender.

The grip was iron like, unrelenting despite his desperate attempts to get free, and darkness overtook his vision.


End file.
